Use your kid’s painting or your pet’s paw painting as decorations. It has high sentimental value and low cost in your wallet.

Buy second hand furniture, visit gumtree or graysonline. There are plenty of people who have to sell stuffs urgently (they could get overseas assignment suddenly from their government or their companies). Or there are people who just like to change their furniture and decoration every year.

Or buy new but flawed furnitures.

Or buy ex display furnitures.

Buy good quality products, the cost per wear or cost per use is less.

Don’t buy additional warranty, it is normally not worthwhile.

Don’t stock your home with a lot of items.

Don’t buy additional storages. If you have too many items, that means there are items that are unused. Unused must be sold. Less clutter happy mind. Storage cost purchases are not worth the while. You are just going to be accumulating junks at the cost of storage costs. Donate them or sell them.

Try to swap house chores with neighbours, such as babysitting, lawn mowing, cleaning the gutters, raking leaves from the lawn, etc. It is going to save you the cost to pay out for tradesperson or nannies to do the job.

Be handy, try to fix things on your own.

But be careful, don’t skimp on things that you cannot fix on your own, such as electricity. It could be much more costly if you don’t do it properly.

Don’t buy items that can be thrown away after each use, such as mops, wipes, etc. Use the old fashioned mops and cloths.

Don’t throw away napkins, tissues, ketchups, wet wipes, cutleries which you get from buying take away. Stock them up at home. It would be handy and reduce buying your own stuffs.

Buy generic products.

Make your own cleaning solutions.

Don’t buy clothes that are dry clean only.

Pay utilities bills on time, avoid late fees.

Maintain and keep your appliances well. Prevention is better and less costly than cure. For example, engage in regular (yearly) pest spray and termite spray. Often, the house could come with termite/pest warranty and if you don’t pay to conduct the yearly pest/termite spray, the warranty would be extinguished. And by the time you realize the termite/pest problem, usually it would be already too big. Conduct the regular check, to avoid large bill.

Stock up and replace your items during discount (mid year and end of year), make full use of staff discount and credit card points.